On Oct 26, 5:40 pm, Harry Hope <riv...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/24/07:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/336682_amy25.html

Global warming link to natural disasters

AMY GOODMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

Fires rage through Southern California.

Massive rainstorms drench New Orleans.

The Southeast U.S., stretching from Tennessee across the Carolinas and
into Georgia, is in the midst of what could be the worst drought on
record there.

While the media do an admirable job bringing us live images of extreme
weather, it doesn't explain why those events are happening.

What links these crises?

Global warming.

Two words that have all too often been vacuumed off government Web
sites and erased from government scientific studies.

If the press isn't making the connection, Bill McKibben is.

In 1989, he wrote the book "The End of Nature," one of the first books
to describe global warming as an emerging environmental crisis.

Now he is leading a campaign to draft mass grass-roots participation
to publicize the potential catastrophe of climate change and to demand
federal action to "Step It Up."

The first Step It Up day of action, April 14, 2007, organized in local
communities (including Seattle) through a central Web site, saw 1,400
coordinated activities pulled together in just three months.

The second day of action is planned for Nov. 3, organized through
stepitup2007.org.

"What's important to remember and the reason that we spend all our
time organizing now, trying to change all this, is that so far human
beings have raised the temperature of the planet about 1 degree
Fahrenheit," says McKibben.

"The computer modeling makes it very clear that before the century is
out, unless we take very strong action, indeed, we're going to raise
the temperature of the planet another 5 degrees Fahrenheit."

The cascade effect is what is so important.

How could 1 degree Fahrenheit make such a big difference?

One immediate, measurable impact, says University of Arizona scientist
Tom Swetnam, is the increase in the frequency and duration of large
wildfires in the U.S. West.

Swetnam and his team have linked a warming, drying trend since the
1980s to the incidence of fires, like the dozen that are raging out of
control in California.

The predictions are not good.

Trees take in carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, releasing
oxygen.

In his August 2006 Science article, Swetnam reports that Western U.S.
forests remove 20 percent to 40 percent of the carbon dioxide in the
U.S.

As forests burn, McKibben notes, carbon is released into the
atmosphere.

Fewer trees then remain to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,
making warmer conditions, supporting more and longer fires, and so on,
creating a positive feedback loop.

A central warning of the scientific community is this:

At some point, if Earth's temperature rises much more, maybe 3
degrees, maybe 6 degrees, an irreversible feedback loop will overwhelm
the planet's climate, with cascading impacts leading to a warmer
planet.

Corporate America is feeling the heat.

Carbon-emitting industries, chastened by the experience of Big Tobacco
and asbestos, see that they might be held accountable -- especially
since they are funding junk science and "Astroturf" (i.e., fake
grass-roots groups) to cast doubt about the effects of global warming.
Insurance companies can't afford to ignore the consequences of global
warming, as extreme weather events cause billions of dollars in
damage.

McKibben and the Step It Up campaign lay out three basic demands:

# Green jobs now, for all: 5 million green jobs conserving 20 percent
of our energy by 2015. Green jobs are created by transforming the
economy from a coal- and oil-burning one to a sustainable economy
built on a new set of energy sources.

# Cut carbon 80 percent by 2050: Freeze climate pollution levels now
and cut at least 80 percent by 2050, and 30 percent by 2020.

# Holding up new coal-fired power plants.

McKibben explains:

"We need a movement as strong, as willing to sacrifice, as morally
urgent, as passionate as the civil-rights movement was a generation
ago. If we don't get it soon ... we're not going to be able to force
the changes that we need over the power of the very strong vested
interests that would like to keep things the way they are, even though
it's now destabilizing the planet in the most powerful and most tragic
ways."

People are taking action.

On Monday, 60 people were arrested in Washington, D.C., as part of the
No War, No Warming days of action, linking the war in Iraq,
post-Katrina recovery and climate change, and demanding action from
Congress.

Humans are causing global warming.

For a short time, we have a chance to limit the damage.

But time is running out.

Step it up.

___________________________________________

Harry

Of course, global alarmist sycophants will disregard this:
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12833-climate-is-too-complex-for-accurate-predictions.html

On Oct 26, 5:40 pm, Harry Hope <riv...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/24/07:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/336682_amy25.html

Global warming link to natural disasters

AMY GOODMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

Fires rage through Southern California.

Massive rainstorms drench New Orleans.

The Southeast U.S., stretching from Tennessee across the Carolinas and
into Georgia, is in the midst of what could be the worst drought on
record there.

While the media do an admirable job bringing us live images of extreme
weather, it doesn't explain why those events are happening.

What links these crises?

Global warming.

Two words that have all too often been vacuumed off government Web
sites and erased from government scientific studies.

If the press isn't making the connection, Bill McKibben is.

In 1989, he wrote the book "The End of Nature," one of the first books
to describe global warming as an emerging environmental crisis.

Now he is leading a campaign to draft mass grass-roots participation
to publicize the potential catastrophe of climate change and to demand
federal action to "Step It Up."

People are taking action.

On Monday, 60 people were arrested in Washington, D.C., as part of the
No War, No Warming days of action, linking the war in Iraq,
post-Katrina recovery and climate change, and demanding action from
Congress.

But time is running out.

Step it up.

Of course, global alarmist sycophants will disregard this:
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12833-climate-is-too-complex-for-accurate-predictions.html